I find it both interesting and ironic concerning your July 12 editorial in which you highlight your own and that of the western world’s dismay over Egypt’s and Myanmar’s imprisonment of journalists. You state that both countries embrace democracies but find it “impossible to reconcile their embrace of democracy with their actions against the press.”

What is interesting and ironic is the Herald’s editorial board’s concern over governments using their power to interfere with the rights of its citizens and a free press but you seem to find no fault in our present government using its power through the IRS Agency to intimidate those citizens who counterbalance the views of the Obama Administration. Where is the outrage in the liberal press to a government willing to intimidate its own citizens and what it could mean in striking at the very heart of our Constitution and the freedom of citizens to voice opposing viewpoints?

You conclude that “political leaders too often have their own agenda.” That does not justify allowing our own government to use its power adversely in dealing with its citizens. If we, as citizens, cannot rely on the fourth estate to help protect us by bringing pressure on the government to stop its abuses, it is a sad day indeed. The IRS abuse has more to do with the principal attack on the very things we believe in and less on the politics involved. You can editorialize on policy differences, but you cannot ignore government overreach. And so I ask, will the Herald please do its job and protect us from government overreach and start to highlight the clear abuses associated with the IRS?